Distant past may expose companies to claims of hypocrisy

Companies risk being criticized as hypocritical when their words and deeds don't match—even if those discrepancies are decades apart, Cornell-led research finds. In a series of studies involving nearly 5,000 participants, real and fictional organizations were deemed hypocritical for inconsistencies separated by more than a half-century—if, for example, they accepted a government bailout in 2008 after having opposed bailouts in the 1960s.